Stoughton mom puts career on hold, stays home with kids

Tuesday

Mar 25, 2014 at 3:28 PMMar 25, 2014 at 3:28 PM

By Lisa Kashinskylkashinsky@wickedlocal.com

When her second child was born, Amanda Scowcroft became a stay-at-home mom.It wasn’t an easy decision, but Scowcroft couldn’t afford the cost of day care, and the programs she looked into didn’t have the flexibility to meet her needs.After her son, Henry, was born in November, Scowcroft did not return to her position as a retail manager. She now stays home in Stoughton with Henry, and her 3-year-old daughter, Addison. Her fiance, Larry Gauthier, works full time as an accountant."Once we had (Henry) him, we pretty much had to make the decision that me going back to work didn’t make any sense," Scowcroft said. "I couldn’t go to work and pay for two kids in day care. I would have been paying solely for day care pretty much with my paycheck."The Scowcrofts are one of many young families faced with the challenge of balancing career with family – and finding the cost of day care is breaking their budget.After having her first child, Scowcroft chose the day care route. She went back to work when Addison was about three months old and placed her in a day care program at the YMCA two days a week."They were wonderful," Scowcroft said. "The teachers were great."While the program was on the "more affordable" end of the spectrum, Scowcroft said she still could only afford two days a week.Ultimately scheduling became an issue. Addison attended the program on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Scowcroft’s manager wouldn’t always give her the same days off from work."He would schedule me off every other Thursday," she said. "Whether she goes or not I have to pay."Scowcroft next tried home day care, which she described as a mother who was certified to provide day care for children."She was a little more flexible because she could work with me on the days," Scowcroft said, adding that it was helpful on days she had to go into work early."There are no day cares that open at 6 a.m."Scowcroft found that option to be "more affordable" and "smaller-based," but soon felt that there wasn’t enough supervision."I felt like there was a problem every other week," she said.Scowcroft decided to pull Addison out of day care and rely on family and friends instead. Scowcroft’s sister watched Addison two days a week, a friend watched her another two days, and eventually that system "got really chaotic," Scowcroft said."At least she was at my house and my friends and family would just come to my house and watch her and play with her here," she said.But when Henry was born, Scowcroft made the choice to stay home." I just work on the weekends," Scowcroft said. "I love being home with my kids, but it wasn’t our first choice."The decision ultimately affected her career."I had to leave my full-time management position, which really kind of hurts considering that I worked really hard to get where I was," she said. "I wasn’t able to keep my job and move forward with my career like I had hoped."Scowcroft said that in terms of affordability, it wasn’t feasible to put two children in day care on "two small incomes."She said day care costs could range from $200 to $500 a week for full-time care. In her experience, home day care was less expensive than the YMCA day care.But saving money wasn’t the only benefit of staying home for Scowcroft.Life became a bit less hectic, she said."When I was working full-time when I had just had Addison, obviously it was a constant balancing act of trying to run a home and working and trying to find family time," she said.But in choosing to have one parent at home, the family has lost one full-time income."Not having full-time incomes, you have to make sacrifices budget-wise, which we’ve done and we’ve gotten used to after time," Scowcroft said.One of those sacrifices was cable television."We choose not to have cable because it’s just another bill that we’ve decided just isn’t worth it," she said. "We’d rather have Addison doing swim lessons or something like that."Scowcroft said she’s going to continue being a stay-at-home mom for the foreseeable future."I’d much rather be home with my kids than paying a day care provider to raise them," she said, noting that if she had been making more money it would have made more financial sense to have her children in day care."But for now, it doesn’t make sense for us."